GENERAL SYSTEMS THEORY and Cybernetics
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 1401 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
As observed quite early by L.von BERTALANFFY, General Systems Theory should not be confused with cybernetics in general. And still less so with WIENER's much more limited in scope first cybernetics, strictly related to communication and control. There has however been a growing connection between the two subjects, specially since W.R. ASHBY's “Introduction to Cybernetics” (1956) and M. MARUYAMA's “Mutual causality” as pattern generator (1963).
W. CANNON's homeostasis (1932) also is basically a cybernetic concept, while understandable only as a system's property. On the other hand, positive feedbacks tend to throw systems out of dynamic equilibrium and, as a result, they escape from the cybernetic mechanisms of regulation and control. Classical (i.e. 1rst order) cybernetics could thus be evaluated as the province of the homeostatic systems.
von FOERSTER cybernetics of 2nd order as well as PASK's cybernetics of cognition and learning and, later on, MATURANA's autopoiesis, while having their roots in cybernetics, are in fact systemic theories.
G. KLIR, in turn, describes as follows the innovations introduced by G.S.T:
- “1. A new way of looking at the world has evolved in which individual phenomena are viewed as interrelated rather than isolated and complexity has become a subject of interest.
- “2. Certain concepts, principles and methods have been shown not to depend on the specific nature of the phenomenon involved. These can be applied without any modification, in quite diverse areas of science, engineering, humanities and the arts, thus introducing links between classical disciplines and allowing the concepts, ideas, principles, models and methods developped in different disciplines to be shared.
- “3. New possibilities (principles, paradigms, methods) for special disciplines have been discovered by making investigations on the general level.” (1969, p.16).
In the first years of G.S.T. (and cybernetics), this was not so obvious. However, during the last twenty years, or so, the conceptual “toolbox” has grown apace, specially in the mathematical field: Fuzzy logic, Theory of Catastrophes, Fractals, Percolation theory; but also from other sources: Dissipative structuration, Organizational closure, neural networks, etc…